Towards the Development of CO2 Separation Membranes

Abstract

This work pertains to current results in the development of CO2 separation membranes from flue gas streams typically found in coal-fired power plants. A versatile free-radicalbased polymerization method is employed for the development of a multifunctional block copolymer that has good affinity to CO2, is processable into and applicable as gas separation polymer membranes. In order to validate the resulting materials, thin slabs of the polymer were melt-processed, and then sorbed with CO2 and N2 in a pressure cell. When the pressure is released, foaming tendencies at the outer regions of the samples were observed. A quantitative model involving measurements of unfoamed regions is used to correlate with permeability ratios as well as CO2-polymer mutual diffusivities. One particular optimized material, called RB1-215, is shown to possess a good CO2 relative permeability to N2. Thus, the experimental methodology has been shown to possibly be able to develop the next generation of CO2 separation polymer membranes for carbon sequestration applications.

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G. Caneba, M. Renier and B. Ott, "Towards the Development of CO2 Separation Membranes," Journal of Minerals and Materials Characterization and Engineering, Vol. 7 No. 2, 2008, pp. 175-191. doi: 10.4236/jmmce.2008.72014.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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